Jura Day 07

We had a very good, leisurely breakfast, and then walked the five minutes to the jetty.  About fifty people got on the boat, and we were able to bag a table on the back deck, in the sunshine and mostly out of the wind.  A couple of the other tables got their first round of drinks in as we left the port at 9:40.  The trip lasted four hours, because of the ten stops between Bregenz and Konstanz.  The voyage took us along the eastern side of the lake before crossing over to Konstanz.  At each port there were more passengers getting on than off, so the ship gradually filled up, though there was plenty of space inside.  Each port/village was very scenic (see the photos).  We soon spotted the first vineyard, and they gradually filled the eastern hillside of the lake.  There were numerous yachts out on the lake, but hardly any wind.  We finally docked in Konstanz and we made our way to a sports shop to get new rubber tips for our walking poles; we had both lost one in the mud a few days ago and the noise of the metal spike on a hard road surface is fairly annoying.  The centre of Konstanz was very busy; apparently many Swiss drive in to do their shopping.  We walked out of the centre and were quickly into quiet residential streets and then walked through a large, unmanned customs point and into Switzerland.  It was now about 2:15pm and we had sixteen kilometres to walk to our accommodation.  The path was a mixture of either combined cyclists and pedestrians, or pedestrian only paths and we made good progress.  The Rhine is very wide here, almost a lake, and it was not possible to see any flow on it.  There was lots of bird life; swans, coots, and various ducks.  We had a couple of rest stops and reached our accommodation at about 5:30pm, having averaged exactly 5kph for 3.5 hours of walking.  The accommodation (studio) has a washing machine and tumble dryer, so we were able to do a wash before heading out for a pizza.  Three countries in one day, and we are now in Switzerland to the end of the trip.